"Our study design provides strong evidence that the association between low vitamin D and respiratory infections is causal and that treating low vitamin D levels in children with an inexpensive and safe supplement will prevent some respiratory infections,"...

...the U.S. Institute of Medicine has raised the recommended dose for children to 400 IU, and other groups recommend daily dosages as high as 1,000 IU for children at risk for vitamin D deficiency.

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Three out of four very ill children were found to have vitamin D deficiency.

"This is the first study to report on vitamin D levels in a large group of critically ill children,"...

The study... included over 300 children and teenagers...admitted to an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) with severe infections, significant trauma or conditions requiring major surgery, such as congenital heart defects.

Their study found that in three of every four critically ill children, blood vitamin D levels were below the target considered safe by many experts and medical societies. Further, those with lower vitamin D levels were noted to be sicker, requiring more life-sustaining therapies (breathing tubes, medications to support heart function) and staying in the ICU for longer periods of time.

"There are simple ways to prevent this problem, and it may be possible to rapidly restore vitamin D levels at the time of severe illness." [emphasis mine]

"Through combining existing datasets for month of birth and subsequent MS risk, this study provides the most robust evidence to date that the month of birth effect is a genuine one."

And they go on to say: "This finding, which supports concepts hypothesised some years previously, surely adds weight to the argument for early intervention studies to prevent MS through vitamin D supplementation."

For the first time a negative effect of vitamin D supplementation has been found. High levels of vitamin D during pregnancy was associated with a higher risk of food allergies during the first two years of the baby's life.

... the higher the level of vitamin D found in the blood of mothers and children, the fewer regulatory T-cells could be detected. The correlation could mean that vitamin D suppresses the development of regulatory T-cells and thus increases the risk of allergy.

Apart from diet, Dr. Kristin Weiße explained that the level of vitamin D is mainly affected by conditions such as season, exposure to the sun and the amount of time spent outdoors -- these factors were also taken into account in the current risk analyses of vitamin D and food allergy. Even though the occurrence of food allergies is undoubtedly affected by many other factors than just the vitamin D level, it is still important to take this aspect into consideration. The UFZ researchers would rather advise pregnant women not to take vitamin D supplements. "Based on our information, an excess of vitamin D can increase the risk of children developing a food allergy in the first two years of their life."